The Circle of Life....Continued

In a previous post I mentioned that I lost my favorite bird, Lucia...My blue hen. I've managed to save 2 of her chicks and with luck one will be a hen.

On another note of good news and showing how the Circle of Life continues no matter what we do....

My purple hen (Mapp) finally started setting on some eggs. This is her second season laying and after laying 12 eggs (only managed to hatch 1 chick out of those) and not getting the "setting" urge she finally got with the progam. Well that was almost 33 days ago. For those of you who don't know hatching takes 28 days.

This past Saturday morning I went out to her pen determined to take away, what I assumed to be dead or infertile eggs and wait patiently for spring to try again.

To my surprise when I finally got her off the nest...After a lot of hissing and some very dirty looks....Wow....4 chicks...fresh out of the shell. One was still wet and not quite dried off yet. Two eggs didn't hatch but that's 4 more than I expected.

Isn't mother nature grand......